Patrice Ann 'Pat' Murphy (born March 9, 1955 in Washington) is an award-winning American science writer and author of science fiction and fantasy novels. Her second novel, The Falling Woman (1986), won the Nebula Award, and she also won a Nebula Award in the same year for her novelette, "Rachel in Love." Her short story collection, Points of Departure (1990) won the Philip K. Dick Award, and her 1990 novella, Bones, won the World Fantasy Award in 1991.
She lives in San Francisco and, for more than 20 years, when she was not writing science fiction, she worked at the Exploratorium, San Francisco's museum of science, art, and human perception. There, she published non-fiction as part of the museum staff.
Murphy has used the ideas of the absurdist pseudophilosophy pataphysics in some of her writings. Along with Lisa Goldstein and Michaela Roessner, she has formed The Brazen Hussies to promote their work. Together with Karen Joy Fowler, Murphy co-founded the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1991.
She has a black belt in the martial art kenpÅ.
Famous quotes containing the words pat and/or murphy:
“Helen, Helen,
the kitchen is your dog
and you pat it
and love it
and keep it clean.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the “Naught is more real ...” and the “Ubi nihil vales ...” both already in Murphy and neither very rational.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)